Song and Dance
by Lachriel
Summary: Three friends discover they're mutants and must make their way across the country to safety.


Author's Note: I am in a fit of updating. I am uploading a lot of things that have sat on my computer for years - some since high school, which has been more than a decade ago.

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Cast: Darling Darla – sleeps like the dead  
Dancing Domonique – is her own chorus, and has great potential  
Diva Destiny – shares her feelings through song

Note: There is no consistancy in the timelines. Stop trying to find it. Any and all timelines that didn't suit me were drug off somewhere and tortured till their bloody death – for my entertainment. Mwahaha. =D

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The "Mutant Problem" wasn't really. Not for them. California was laid-back about a lot of things. Anyway, it was one of those eastern things – like snow and lox.

But then there had been a cheerleader in LA who burned down her high school gym. There had been whispers that she'd been unusually strong, unusually agile, healed faster. There were whispers that she was a mutant, and the stories grew with repeated telling.

Soon there were other tales of strange things happening throughout southern California, and whispers that the Mutant Problem was spreading. Then there had been concerned parents and community members worried about disruptive influences and potential property damage, hoodlums leading their children astray.

The schools started offering testing for the X-gene. It wasn't manditory (too many legal reprecussions there) but was "strongly encouraged." With the pressure and fear, it wasn't long until it might as well have been manditory. Many students were tested before discovering that the tests weren't quite as confidential as they claimed to be.

Students at a small magnent school arrived one day to find fliers plastered all over to walls and lockers. Each flier had a picture of a student, topped by the bright red word "MUTANT." There were five faces in all.

Eight minutes before classes were scheduled to begin, the last three of the five students sauntered in, arm-in-arm and giggling. They stopped short when they saw their faces staring back at them over and over from the fliers.

"Crap," Darla, the shortest girl, said suscintly. "I only just got my results back yesterday."

"Not the best picture of me," said the second girl. Domonique tucked a lock of long, black hair behind her ear and studied a flier.

The third girl, Destiny, didn't say anything. She just chewed her lip nervously.

That was when the mob of frightened, angry students and teachers girls drew together as the mob surrounded them, hands and fists reaching toward them. When someone roughly grabbed at Destiny's hair, she cried out in fear and pain. The crowd edged backward, her own fear mirrored in their faces. With dawning understanding, she screamed again, watching their attackers now try to press away from her and her friends.

"Come on," she said, grabbing one friend by her arm and the other by the back of her shirt. "Come on, run!" She turned them toward the door, and they ran.

They ran, driven by her fears as well as their own. She didn't let the other girls stop or slow down until they had arrived at her house and the door was locked behind them. She sat her friends at a small kitchen table and fetched a first aide kit from under the sink.

Domonique only had bruises, including a rather spectacular black eye spreading darkly over her already dusky skin. Darla had scratches that needed cleaned out and bandaged.

"Destiny?" Domonique asked, "Where are your parents?" She had seen the cars outside, but the house was quiet. "Are they going to be okay with us being here?"

"Dead," Destiny said shortly. A wave of fear and grief washed over the small group. "Double suicide, last week." She pressed her lips together as if trying to keep more words inside.

"Des! You should have said something."

Destiny just shrugged and continued cleaning and bandaging Darla's injuries. "Can you go home?"

"No," Darla said softly. She started crying. "My parents hate mutants. I was afraid to show them my test results. But it's too late – they'll know now."

Destiny wrapped her arms around the smaller girl, letting her sob into her shoulder. "Domo?"

Domonique shrugged. "Not sure. Parents may or may not care. They just want a trophy kid anyway. I may be too much trouble now." She shifted uncomfortably. "There's other considerations though. Probably not so safe, then."

Destiny raised an eyebrow at that, but Domonique shrugged again and looked away.

"Where do we go, then?" Darla asked, wiping her eyes. "What do we do?"

"L.A. to start with," Domonique said. "It'll be easy to lose anyone trailing us in a big city, and easy to get other places from there too. Plus... I've heard of someone there who might be able to help. Maybe."

"You talk like someone's going to hunt us down!" Darla looked a little panicked at the idea.

Domonique shrugged. "Maybe. Better safe than sorry. You saw the way those people turned into a violent mob – teachers and classmates we see every day and they were ready to kill us."

Destiny nodded. She gathered food and money and a few changes of clothes. When they were done, they stopped by Domonique's home, glad for once that her parents were so absorbed in their own lives.

Darla's house was last. Her mother didn't work and usually woke late. They hopped that by mid-morning she would be out of the house. They got in and out without trouble, but had to hide as her mother pulled into the drive as they were leaving. They cowered behind a bush until they heard the door shut, then ran.

The girls slowed after a few blocks, trying to look casual as they made their way toward the bus station when they obviously ought to have been in school. No one stopped them or took any notice of them. The clerk at the bus station took in their bruises and bandages and sold them tickets with no more comment than a pitying glance.

The girls relaxed once the bus started moving, leaving their sleepy suburban town behind them.


End file.
